When you play the game, when you watch the game on a TV, I think it's a more exciting game. It's more skating, up-and-down hockey. For offensive players, you can get more scoring chances and shots. Plus, the offensive zone is a lot bigger and it is better on power plays. |
When you're down two goals to Ottawa, it's different than down two goals to the Islanders. I respect every team in the NHL. But I think there's a difference between the Islanders and Ottawa right now. |
Why? Because it's after practice. You should've seen me before. |
With his size, that's the way you have to play when you're a younger guy and you have to play in the big leagues. Some guys don't have to work because they're big and it comes easy to them. |
Yeah. It might be the best league in the world besides the NHL. |
You can't look at the big picture. By losing three straight you can't say, 'Let's win four.' We didn't play good the last 10 games of the season. We're just lucky we had enough points to make (the playoffs). |
You can't win with one goal. That's the bottom line. The way we played was not good. |
You could say it if you want to use that excuse. We lost the hockey game. We didn't play well enough to win it. We didn't deserve to win it. |
You have to get used to it. It's not easy. I felt a little bit better than I did before. You play the North American style and you play that kind of game, but now you have to play a different game. Even though it's the same rules, it's a different game. |
You have to have guts to do that move. In front of 20,000 people watching you, it's not that easy to do. |
You have to make sure you score at home because on the road you don't see many hats. That's a tradition, that's the way it is. I don't ask why or when this started. |
You have to play the game to feel how well you're playing. You know sooner or later you're going to come back. We were down two goals because we were making mistakes, not because we were playing poorly, and it almost cost us the game. |
You know we were prepared more so than in the past games. The first ten minutes they had seven minutes of power play. When we killed it and it works both ways. It gave us the momentum on our side and plus their top guys get tired. |